“We need to get the pack home and talk… all of us. This isn’t the place.” I utter softly, caressing his cheek and inhaling him to drown out the smell of what’s around us. I can sense his indecision, his lull of logical thought as he swallows this all down. Colton’s trying to process but he’s unable to when it’s so much all at once and all he’s doing is clinging to me like I might implode if he let’s go. His breathing heavy by my ear and as much as I could stay this way forever after yearning for him for endless days, I really don’t want to stay here.
Colton continues to hold onto me, silent and pondering before he scoops me into his arms like a bride and starts carrying me towards the path that leads up and out into the woods. His face says it all, that blank expression yet it doesn’t shield the war in his eyes and his lack of verbal response means he just can’t right now.
I know my mate too well and his guilt will be taking hold over everything else, even the news that I want him to acknowledge. That we’re pregnant, yet I know not to be hurt by him saying nothing. I can see it in his face, feel it seeping from him. My boy’s in shock and his instinct to take me home where it’s warm and safe is overriding everything else.
I curl up against him, sliding my arms around his neck and pull myself up to his jaw to inhale him and cuddle in. He’s stiff, solemn faced, and giving out all kinds of weird vibes as he processes the memories. Set on a goal – getting us out of here as we follow the last signs of our pack mates. He’s closing me out to save me from being emotionally ambushed and I don’t like it at all. The ebbing away as he closes back our link and doing what Colton does when he wants to protect me from his pain, his suffering. He cuts the bond as much as he can and tries to bear it alone.
“Say something” I nudge and tense when his jaw twitches. I expected outward verbal of some kind and not this weird silent thing he’s doing. It’s unnerving me that he isn’t reacting in quite the way I expected.
“I’m sorry, baby….. I’m so fucking sorry.” He stops dropping me to my feet and hauls me bodily against him, pulling me in so hard he almost winds me and wraps me up in is arms, tucking my face under his chin and squeezing. His voice breaks as a torrent of pent-up emotion breaks and I feel a tear pass from his cheek to mine that almost breaks me. “I could have killed you… I almost…… the doctor that’s the first port of call. To get you checked, them checked. You should never have been in this fight, not pregnant, Lorey… Do you realize how stupid that was? How close to dying you were?” He pulls back. His tone from soft and sorrowful, to instant rage as his last words are delivered loudly with aggression and I flinch in reaction.
Okay anger I didn’t expect and as he lets me go an picks me up again, because I am so obviously not allowed to walk, he furrows his brow, blinks away the show of tears and that determined but pissed as hell expression covers his face once more. He bites on his lower lip to curb his urge to scold me and instead starts stomping through the forest, turning semi wolf to make it less painful on his human skin to be naked. His emotions are strong, the wave of fury and fire coursing through because he’s mad as hell for many things, but mostly because I put myself in danger for him. In so many ways.
“I had no choice…I need to lead.” I whimper softly, not wanting our reunion to be like this and recoil when he snaps back.
“No, you fucking didn’t. That’s what Meadow is there for when I’m not. She’s my beta…the one who deals with war and battle. You’re the Luna. You’re my fucking life, Lorey…. I don’t care what is expected of a Luna, it doesn’t count when it comes to you. You always put your safety first, over everything you hear me…That’s a fucking order!” The biting attitude and he alpha tones me in his last two sentences which enrages me on all kinds of levels. He swore he would never ever alpha tone me again as long as we lived, because he knows how much I hate his use of it over my free will. The angry growl he exudes and yep, he is really pissed about all of this, despite the fact we saved his ass and broke a spell. “If anything has happened to those two babies. I’ll never forgive myself!”
His last words tear me open inside, dampening my own growing rage as it sizzles into nothing like water on hot coals. I lift myself back to his face and pull his jaw with clasped hands to look at me. Pulling his eyes to mine even though he tries to fight me at first, but then relents when he catches my gentle expression and the misting of my eyes at his being so mad.
“I had to bring you home, or else those two babies were not going to have a father…and I wasn’t about to leave you out here. I couldn’t live without you.” I try softly, attempting to soothe him with my obvious devotion, but he squints his eyes and turns away from me. His jaw clenching, showing he’s still highly emotional and not really in the soft lovey mode of communication. My sweet talking never works when he’s in pig headed and overprotective mode.
“Your life trumps everything. Your safety comes first. I can’t believe my mom even allowed you to do this, what the hell was she thinking?” He rages out loud, throwing out a Colton tantrum into the air around us. Stamping across the foliage like a bad mooded bear and I close my mouth and cling on in the hopes the walk home will help him vent a little.
“That my daughter was more capable than you give her credit for!” Sierra’s voice cuts in, almost making Colton drop me as he realizes she’s still wandering around here without an escort but walking along beside him inside this retched forest. She has dodged Meadow and Carmen and found her way back to us and probably has Carmen going mad with looking.
“Don’t even, Mom. You don’t know what you missed back there when you lost her. Jesus Christ, I go mentally off the charts for a week and you two start running around the forest taking on vampires! What the hell, mom? The two most important people in my life, and you’re out here acting like all this is a walk in the park and neither have any chance of being hurt.” He shouts at her too, and I flinch and curl up into a tight ball in his arms. He never raises his voice to Sierra, ever, in the whole time I have loved him and yet here he is, scolding her like she’s another unruly pack member and not the Rema. I squirm to get loose but the death glare he snaps on my face tells me to stay still and let him carry me all the way home. He’s not to be screwed with in this mood.
“I know this may be really hard to comprehend Cole, but I’m your mother, and I was doing far more dangerous things before you were born or old enough to lead a pack. I can hold my own, and your mate… the fates wouldn’t give you someone who wasn’t able to fend for herself. She made it out, didn’t she? She’s here, unharmed, and so are your children.” Sierra pushes us out onto a well-worn path that leads back to the homestead that I guess the vampires used and we catch sight of others in the woods heading home too. Some trying not to eavesdrop, but I guess the alpha going at his mom and mate are something worthy of listening to. It doesn’t happen … ever.
We make our way into the sunny clearing of freedom and stench free air, inhaling to clear our nostrils and Sierra darts fast to wipe her blood-soaked hands on the grass by the opening of the forest canopy where light becomes bright enough to see.
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